Early CinemaHUM 3280: Narrative Film

Fall 2012Dr. Perdigao

August 27-29, 2012

Staging• Mise-en-scène: “placement in a scene” or “onstage” (Corrigan and White 64)

• Scenic elements of a movie—actors, aspects of lighting, sets and settings, costumes, make-up (64)

• First movies as “scenes”—Edison and Lumière films (66)

• Dating back to Greek theater around 500 B.C.E.

• 1915—change in films with art directors and set designers

• Soundstages designed in 1920s

• Location shooting as mid-twentieth century development

• Setting—as “fictional or real place where the action and events of the film occur”

• Set as “constructed setting”(70)

• Realism—truthful picture of society (70)

Propping

Propping• Props (short for property), tool used by actors

• Centrality of prop in The Maltese Falcon; red shoes in The Wizard of Oz; umbrella in Singin’ in the Rain (Corrigan and White 72)

• Instrumental props and metaphorical props (72)Common function versus reinvention or new purpose

• Cultural props Meaning associated with their society: Herbie Fully Loaded’s Volkswagen Beetle; Easy Rider’s motorcycles (73)

• Contextualized props Change meaning within narrative; red violin; Ronin’s briefcase; Hitchcock’s “McGuffins,” propos that “appear to be important only

at first” (73)

Performatives• Actor, performance (use of language, physical expression, and gesture) (73-

74)

• Types of actors: leading actors, character actors, supporting actors (Corrigan and White 75)

• Character types, casting in specific kinds of roles (Tom Hanks)

• Blocking“[A]rrangement and movement of actors in relation to each other

within the physical space of mise-en-scène” (76)

• Graphic blocking Arrangement according to “visual patterns to portray spatial

harmony, tension, or some other visual atmosphere” (77)

Illuminati• Lighting—part of mise-en-scène; light sources located within the scene itself

(Corrigan and White 79)

• Natural lighting

• Set lighting

• Directional lighting—more dramatically apparent, to define and shape the object or person being illuminated (82)

• ShadingComplementing narrative

Materialism• Mise-en-scène as defining our location in the material world (Corrigan and

White 86)

• External condition—define the material possibilities in a place or space (87)

• Measure of character—establishing identity in relation to surrounding setting and sets (87)

• Naturalistic versus theatrical mise-en-scène that denaturalizes locations

• The Birth of a Nation as moving between the two

• Historical mise-en-scène as attempt to recreate recognizable historical scene

• Theatrical mise-en-scène as the fantastic: Sherlock Jr.?

• Expressive mise-en-scène—setting, sets, props asserted independently of the characters, describe emotional or spiritual life “permeating the material world” (89)

• Constructive mise-en-scène—world as shaped or altered by characters (92)

Cinematography• Beginnings of cinematography with Eadweard Muybridge’s

chornophotography and Zoopraxiscope (Corrigan and White 99)

• W. L. K. Dickson, working for Thomas Edison, invented the Kinetoscopic camera in 1891 (99)

• 1895—Lumière brothers

• Wide-angle lens

• Handheld cameras

• Widescreen processes in 1950s, anamorphic lens (102)

• Steadicam

• Cinematography as “writing in movement”• Shot

• Point of view (105)

Frames• Subjective and objective points of view

• Focus

• Framing—“contains, limits, and directs the point of view within the borders of the rectangular frame” (Corrigan and White 105)

• Canted frameUnbalanced or askew (105)

• Mobile frame

• Aspect ratio (105): widescreen 1.85:1, correlation with television in 1950s

• MasksCamera cutting off portions of frame (108)

Frames• Iris shot

Circular image (108)

• Iris-inOpening circle

• Iris-outClosing circle

Scaling• Distance of camera from subject determines scale (Corrigan and White 109)

• Close-up

• Extreme close-up

• Extreme long shot—greater distance between camera and person or object, space dwarfs objects (110)

• Medium shotMiddle ground, human body from waist or hips up (110)

• Medium long shot3/4 view of character, from knees up (111)

• Medium close-upCharacter’s head and shoulders, in conversation scenes (111)

Angling• High angle

Downward on individuals or scene, making them smaller (112)

• Low angleUpward, making individuals appear larger (112)

• Overhead or crane shotFrom high above (112)

• Point-of-view (POV) shotFrom character’s perspective (112), subjective camera

• Deep focusMultiple planes in image in focus (113)

• Shallow focusOnly narrow range of field is focused (113)

• Rack focus (or pulled focus)Focus shifts from one object to another (113)

Camera positions• Reframing

Movement of frame from one position to another (Corrigan and White 116); Citizen Kane example

• PanSide to side movement, vertical axis (117)

• TiltFrame moved up or down on horizontal axis (117)

• Tracking shotChanges position by moving camera forward or backward (117)

• Dolly shotMovement of camera on wheeled dolly (117)

• Traveling shotUsed to describe both tracking and dolly shots

Camera positions• Following shot

Following an individual character (117)

• Handheld shotThe Blair Witch Project (1999)

• SteadicamTo achieve the stability of a tripod mount, fluidity of a tracking shot, and the flexibility of a handheld camera; special stabilizing mount (118)

Zooms• Zoom lenses (Corrigan and White 118)

• Zoom-inCamera stationary as zoom lens changes focal length

• Zoom-outReverses action

Sounds• Edison’s phonograph in 1877

• Sound experiment by Edison Studios in 1895

• Phonography as “sound writing” (Corrigan and White 179)

• 1927-1930: incorporation of synchronized sound

• 1926-1927: Warner Bros. and Fox competing with sound technologies

• 1926: Warner Bros.’ Vitaphone sound-on-disk system

• Fox with Movietone sound system

• The Jazz Singer as Warner Bros.’ second feature film with recorded sound; Don Juan (1926) as first with recorded score

• Studios signed with Western Electric (subsidiary of AT&T) to adopt a sound-on-film system to replace sound-on-disk process (182)

• 1930s: silent films no longer produced by major studios; only few independent filmmakers, such as Charlie Chaplin, stayed with silent films (182)

Sounds• Radio Corporation of America joined with Keith-Orpheum theaters to become

RKO, one of five studios, the “majors,” that dominated sound-era cinema—produced King Kong in 1933 and Citizen Kane in 1941